A muscle twitched in his jaw. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know. He just said that he might need my help for something. He said he wants me to use my power.”
“So he’ll give it back?”
I wanted to kill Salem, but I had to be calculating. If there was a chance he’d give me my power back, then I’d wait till after he returned it to me. “That’s what he said.”
Lyr leaned down, grazing his teeth over my throat. There as something possessive in the gesture. He kissed my neck deeply, running his tongue over my throat until I moaned, moving my hips against him.
When he pulled away again, he murmured into my neck, “Salem is not trustworthy. He is the man who destroyed Ys. He’s the one who killed your mother. You can’t wait for him to give you your power back and hope that he’s good on his word. I just need to kill him. I’ll rip out his heart, and I won’t let him get anywhere near you.”
My heart sank at that thought, even though the logical part of my mind knew that he had a point.
I brushed his pale hair off his face. “Don’t do anything hasty. Not without my command.”
He stared deeply into my eyes. “What else is on your mind? Something else is bothering you.”
I sighed, my chest heavy. “I’ve been wondering if my mother was always a bit warped. You know, the bloodstained wedding dress, the nighttime stories about how she murdered my dad. That kind of thing. What if both my parents were a bit evil?”
“She was never perfect.” He pressed me close against his powerful body. “But nobody is. I’m not. You’re not. It doesn’t mean we’re evil. Your mother had her flaws, and she hungered for power. But she protected the people of Ys fiercely. She protected the weak and the vulnerable like a good leader should. That’s the real reason she had my loyalty. And maybe you didn’t take after her in the old days, but now I see the best of your mother in you. I started seeing it after you threw that woman’s husband out. You’re like your mother once was.”
I nestled my face into his neck, breathing in his scent.
“I thought we needed her back,” he said. “And I wanted it so badly that I committed a crime against the gods. But all we really needed was you. You’re the true queen of Ys. And it’s now my mission to protect you.”
I smiled up at him. “But why do I feel like you’ve been protecting me all along? Or at least, you didn’t kill me when you should have. You thought that I was torturing people to death for no reason, and nailing iron into fae bodies for sadist purposes. Why am I still alive? Why didn’t you throw me in prison at least?”
He shifted. “I just couldn’t. When I saw you in London standing over that human body, I thought it was my duty to kill you. But the idea of hurting you made me feel physically sick. It was like iron corroding me every time I thought about it. It felt like witchcraft.”
“Is that why you healed me in the prison and gave me a pillow?”
He flicked his fingers under the waist of my panties, teasing me again with slow, lazy strokes. “Yes. That’s why I gave you my cloak. And I wanted you to smell like me.”
“How sweet.”
“I told you. It’s my job to protect you.”
I dragged my fingernails down his bare back as he tugged down my panties.
Oh, Lyr.
When I got my power back, I wouldn’t need protecting.